


fear the deer

by nuclearmuffins



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: All the dumb deer are here, All the relationship stuff is post-timeskip, F/M, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Golden Deer Route, Fluff, Post-Timeskip (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Pre-Relationship, Pre-Time Skip, THEY HOLD HANDS FOR FIVE SECONDS, and a bit of, it's wild, mentions of other students
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-31
Updated: 2019-08-31
Packaged: 2020-10-03 23:11:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20461073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nuclearmuffins/pseuds/nuclearmuffins
Summary: Before the Battle of Eagle and Lion, Byleth stays up all night for the sake of her Golden Deer.And five years later, Byleth realizes something about Claude's wardrobe.





	fear the deer

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This fic marks my first foray into writing FE, so please be gentle ^^ While I've been enjoying my playthrough of Blue Lions, I just missed my darling deers a hell of a lot, and so this fic happened! Please be warned that this was basically written in a span of 3 hours on no sleep and is largely unedited, so apologies for any errors. I'd love to hear your opinions - if I got my Deer voices wrong, if I went too heavy (or light) on the fluff - anything! 
> 
> <strike>If you're just here for the Claudeleth, it's at the very end</strike>

The faces of Byleth’s students were absolute _ pictures _as she and Claude unveiled the Golden Deer’s single, solitary banner for them to see. Byleth had never been a woman for emotion, either reading or expressing them, but even she can see all the gears working in their head as they stared at the single, sad bolt of golden fabric, emblazoned with a deer with half an antler burnt off and the seams starting to come undone at her fingertips.

Leonie’s eyebrows shot up and disappeared into her bangs, her mouth falling slightly slack. Marianne stared down at the ground and laced her fingers together. Lysithea frowned and tilted her head sideways as if she couldn’t quite believe what she was seeing. Ignatz’s shoulders slumped as he winced. Lorenz’s face, frozen in a horrorstruck expression as he almost repulsed away from it would have made for a hilarious picture in most circumstances. Except for this one. 

Raphael scratched his temple, brows knitting together in confusion as he stared at the banner. “I don’t get it. Is that it? Where are the other ones?”

“There are no others, Raphael,” Claude answered, the tone of his voice still neutral even with the pathetic banner in his hand. _ Still only just starting to figure him out. _ “This was the only one we were given.”

Hilda frowned, her tone uncharacteristically sheepish as she supplied an answer. “I… I think I know what happened to the other banners, Professor. My big brother was the leader of the Golden Deer the last time we won the Battle of the Eagle and Lion, and…” Hilda shuffled her feet. “The celebration _ may _ have gotten out of hand and all the Golden Deer banners _ may _ have gotten destroyed.”

_ Of course. _ Byleth did what her father called her “contemplative sigh” - a long, lingering inhale through flared nostrils and a sharp exit of air through the gaps in the prison of her gritted teeth. She should have _ known _, really. For never having met the man, Holst Goneril certainly had made himself known to her through everything she had heard from Hilda and several others as a larger-than-life figure, as jovial as he was overprotective of his little sister. It somehow made perfect sense that it was pretty much his fault the Golden Deer had only one banner to their name. “In all that time they haven’t replaced the banners, so we’ve only got this one,” Byleth replied, keeping her voice as flat as possible to try and hide the dismay starting to edge itself into her tone.

“Yep. Maybe it’s meant as a lesson, like, ‘don’t party too much after your victory or you’ll get all your banners destroyed, too,” Claude suggested, breaking into a smile.

“Claude, I don’t _ appreciate _ you making light of this situation. Whether it was the fault of the Alliance’s most esteemed general or not, this is a _ disgrace_,” Lorenz huffed, his eyes narrowing. “For our house to be so poorly decorated as we are in comparison to the other houses, just before the Battle of the Eagle and Lion is most unseemly of us. I shall have to write to my father and send for-”

“Oh come on, Lorenz, it’s not _ that _ bad,” Leonie said in Lorenz’s direction, although Byleth thought she might have been trying just as hard to convince herself as she was him. “Having less fancy flags compared to the Eagles or the Lions won’t affect our fighting, will it? We’re just the same as the other houses. I’d even say we’re _ better_, thanks to the Professor teaching us everything she knows from Captain Jeralt.”

But even as Leonie tried to muster up enthusiasm in the face of their lacklustre decoration, Byleth got an uneasy feeling in her stomach as she surveyed the rest of Gronder Field, a blur of tents draped in reds and blues, mixed with the sounds of enthusiastic training as they all anticipated the mock battle tomorrow. Even the students she had recruited from the other houses - Sylvain, Ashe, and Dorothea - were paying visits to their previous houses instead, laughing with their former classmates as bright pennants and streamers of red and blue silk waved merrily in the air.

She wasn’t used to that feeling. And she didn’t like it.

“It _ is _ unfortunate we won’t have anything for our house tomorrow at Gronder. Except for… well…” Lysithea wrinkled her nose at the banner, now drooping in Byleth’s hands. “That.”

“Um… I don’t think we need them. Everyone knows who we are…” Marianne spoke in her usual undertone, hands twisting together as she continued staring nervously at the ground.

Byleth chewed the inside of her cheek. “There _ is _ actual value in banners and coat of arms as a way of boosting morale,” she said, deciding to turn this into a teachable moment for her students. She was a professor, after all; she had to sneak a lesson in somehow. She sighed, feeling even more of the threads coming undone in her hand. _ At this rate, we won’t even have _ one _ banner before the sun comes up tomorrow_. “It’s a little late, but we could make something before the battle tomorrow. Ignatz, do you think you could paint something?”

Ignatz shook his head and stared down at the ground, fidgeting with his sleeve. “I left all my paints back at the monastery. I didn’t think I would have any chance to paint, what with the battle and all…”

“So…. is that it?” Hilda frowned. “We’re stuck with… this?”

“Hey, hey, let’s settle down, guys,” Claude interjected over the haze of disappointment hanging over them all. “Sure, we might not be the most impressive-looking house at Gronder tomorrow, but you know what we’ve got? We’ve got two unflinching archers-” he pointed at Ignatz and Leonie, both of whom stood up a little straighter at his words; “our amazing mages,” Lysithea beamed with pride, Lorenz puffed up with exuberance, and Marianne’s rosy flush clashed with her blue hair; “our terrific frontline fighters-” Raphael grinned and flexed his muscles, while Hilda looked aghast at the mere thought of her being a frontline fighter; “And we’ve got Teach with us. With her at our side leading us to victory, we can’t go wrong.”

Even Byleth had to smile at his words. That was Claude for you. Even if his expression was still unreadable, he had such a way with words he could make you believe he could bring down the moon if he just tried hard enough.

“That’s all, everyone. Go get some rest, train, do whatever you’d like for the rest of the day as long as you stay out of trouble. We’re going to win this!” Byleth called out, summoning all the enthusiasm she could muster for her students. 

Her Golden Deer huddled together, hands piling in a stack with her own at the very top. “1, 2, 3 - GOLDEN DEER!” 

The way they all smiled as they dispersed - even Marianne - warmed all of her unbeating heart. She wanted to believe. She _ did _ believe in them.

Even if her house was going to appear rather shabby tomorrow for likely the battle of their lifetimes. _ But I can fix that. _

* * *

Byleth’s mind was too crowded for sleep, even without Sothis piping up with her typical snippy comments. So she scrounged up a few plain black tarps, “borrowed” a Leicester flag from Lorenz, and dug up the spare needles and spools of thread from the bottom of her satchel. The sun had begun to set over Gronder Field, the site of the long-awaited mock battle tomorrow, and she only had so much time to work.

Jeralt had long believed in the value of self-sufficiency, a trait he’d drilled into Byleth from her earliest days. “The only one you can truly rely on in this world is yourself,” he’d told her when she’d been as young as five. “Nobody else will do what you need for you, so best learn to do it yourself.

She wasn’t so sure of how true the part about herself being the only one she could rely on was anymore, but still, doing things by herself had saved her a lot of trouble (and money) in her life. Knowing how to cook actual, edible food might have saved her life more than a few times, and she had patched up rips in her coat more times than she could count, saving her the cost of having to buy an entirely new one. 

Still, she’d never been the best seamstress. She could mend her own torn sleeve just fine, but nobody would be calling her to sew a king’s shirt anytime soon. To say nothing of embroidery - her stitches more often than not ended up crooked and unsightly, definitely not anything that would hold up to scrutiny in, say, a lady’s finishing school.

But her Golden Deer deserved better than one ancient, decaying banner with their homeland’s symbol half-burnt and nearly unrecognizable.

_ Nobody else is going to do it for you. _

With that, she threaded her needle and got to work. It was going to be a _ long _ night.

* * *

“Hey, morning, Tea- _ Woah! _”

Claude’s voice was like a shock to her senses as Byleth snapped her head up, a few strands of her messy teal hair falling into her eyes as she unglued her cheek from her work surface. Through a slight gap in the folds of her tent, a shaft of dawn’s light fell into her eyes, forcing a yelp from her as she squeezed her eyes back shut.

“Claude,” she mumbled, her voice fogged over by a yawn as she stretched lazily, feeling her nerves beginning to forcibly jolt awake just before a wave of exhaustion crashed into her, like the morning after a long grading session where she’d fallen asleep at her desk. Her needle tumbled out of her hand, falling haphazardly to the ground. “G-good m-morning.”

Her house leader had arrived in her tent with an array of maps tucked under his arm; now they were scattered over the table as he surveyed her with worry. “Teach, were you up _ all night? _ You look-”

“Positively glowing, I know,” she grumbled, rubbing her eyes with the heels of her palms and digging the dirt out of her vision. “I just need some coffee and I’ll be fine. What did you want to talk to me about?”

“I wanted to go over some last-minute strategy before the battle in a few hours, but-” Claude picked up one of the pieces of cloth off the table, running his hand over the stitches in wide-eyed astonishment. “Did you really stay up all night making these?”

Byleth groaned. “Don’t look at them too closely, all the stitches are crooked. I made them in too much of a rush, and I think I may have fallen asleep-” she threw her hands up, gesturing to the banner she had fallen asleep on top of, maybe the sixth she made that night. She had the idea of sewing the Leicester emblem in its centre and adorning it with deer antlers at the sides, but she’d fallen asleep before she’d been able to sew the antlers and in their place was a small stain from her drooling in her sleep. 

Claude shook his head, the corners of his lips still pricked up. “You really are something, Teach, did I ever tell you that?” 

Byleth shot him a lazy, sleep-mussed smile. “You might have, once or twice, but I could stand to hear it some more.”

He offered her a hand up, and for a few moments, she simply stared at it. “What are you doing?”

“We’re showing the rest of the class. Come on,” he waved her over, gesturing for her to get up and take his hand.

“I thought you wanted to go over the strategy for-”

“That? That can wait. But I want to show the whole class how hard you’ve worked for them. For us,” he beamed at her, as bright as rays of sun. “And maybe get you that cup of coffee.”

Even as she rolled her eyes she lifted the corners of her mouth in a smile, taking his hand and letting him pull her up so he could show the banners to the rest of the class. 

Her banners - her badly-sewn, heavy-handed deer and all - flew over Gronder as the Golden Deer carved their way to a hard-earned victory. The field rang with shouts of “FEAR THE DEER!”, both from her students and the other houses, and Byleth thought her unbeating heart might burst with pride for all of them.

Her Golden Deer.

* * *

Five years later, while planning a battle - very much a real one, this time - Byleth startled as the recognition of what was draped over Claude’s shoulder hit her like a sudden blow to the head.

“C-Claude!” she stammered, not quite believing what she was seeing. “What’s that… thing you’re wearing?” She pointed awkwardly at his shoulder. _ Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it’s a much better-sewn sash, made by people who knew what they were doing. He’s Duke Riegan now, after all, leader of the wealthiest house in the Alliance; he has access to whatever he wants... _

“Ah. I was wondering when you’d notice, Teach,” Claude grinned, turning to the side so she could have a clear view. Her clumsy, crooked stitches in the shape of the Leicester Alliance’s coat of arms stared back at her. She remembered it like it had been yesterday (it felt like yesterday, really, that they were playing at war with sticks and attacks meant to bruise, not maim) - that was the one she had fallen asleep on after her night of frenzied sewing. 

“You _ kept it? _ ” Byleth questioned, a mint-coloured brow rising as she shot him a _ look. _ “You could have- I don’t know. Something better made, more befitting your status as the leader of the Alliance?”

“Maybe,” Claude admitted, tugging at its edge. “But that wouldn’t carry the same meaning as this does for me.”

“Meaning?” Both her eyebrows were quirked up now. Claude really could be oddly sentimental at the strangest times.

“Meaning…” she heard him intake a sharp breath, almost sucking in the air. “I could have the finest seamstress in Derdriu make me a sash with only the finest silk imported from Almyra, but it wouldn’t be the same as this. But you were the one that made this, and I....” he trailed off and stared into the distance like he was searching for the right words to say. 

“I kept it after the Battle, but I didn’t start wearing it until you went missing after the battle at the monastery. You made this because you believed in all of our class - but seeing you so hard to make this... It was the first step in hoping you could - you _ would _ \- believe in my dreams too. And if you believed in me, I believed that I would find you again, so I-” he gestured to the banner draped over his arm. “I put it on every day for five years, thinking about that reunion we had promised. To the rest of the Alliance, it looks like I’m wearing my status right on my arm, but… I know differently.”

His words held truth to them. She believed in him, in all of them. She had from the very beginning, even when they had been a ragtag bunch of misfits, most of whom couldn’t stand each other, filling her classroom with the sound of constant bickering. ‘

But Claude’s dream - the one she had slowly uncovered looking past his veneer of winking artifice, the carefully built armour of charm and wit - that had taken time to build up, but now her hope in it blazed brighter than any flame. 

Another realization hit her then - she had her hand pressed against Claude’s shoulder, feeling the warmth of his skin even through the heavy fabric of his coat. This was ill-advised, improper… but it didn’t feel _ wrong. _ And she didn’t pull her hand away, despite her better judgement. 

Almost as formally as a dance, like how he had pulled her into the festivities the night of that ball so many years ago, he lifted her hand off his shoulder and held it in his. Almost as if pulling her into a waltz.

She didn’t know what he would do with her hand. That was the thing with Claude - always the slightest bit of unpredictability with him. Maybe he would kiss her hand, and she knew even that little gesture would undo her, untie any of the composure she’d managed to hold for so long. 

But he didn’t. He nearly did, leaning his cheek against her knuckles for the briefest of moments, so softly she thought she might have imagined it had all her sense not felt oddly heightened at the gesture.

Maybe her hand lingered in his grasp for a moment too long. Her mind began to race; if her heart was capable, it probably would have too. All her war-frayed nerves hummed in a frenzy of disjointed thoughts. There were a few words she wished she could have said, wanted so _ desperately _ to say to him - an odd sensation, given she was normally a woman of so few words. The dam holding back all these strange emotions was delicate, on the verge of breaking; if she gave way even for a moment it would explode from her in a burst.

But now was not the time to speak of such things. They would have time when this war ended, if it would ever end… that’s if they both made it out alive, too.

As if he had thought the same thing at the exact same time, his hand slackened and he let hers go, gently dropping it in her lap. The spell of the moment broken, she awkwardly coughed and turned her attention back to the map sprawled out on the war table before them.

“So. Gronder Field again.”

He moved two carved wooden pieces towards her - a man astride a wyvern and a woman wielding a sword. “It all seems so familiar, doesn’t it?”


End file.
